


beneath the tree with fallen leaves

by nerrinzer



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, F/M, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 05:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13757274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerrinzer/pseuds/nerrinzer
Summary: you don't remember giving this guy and his crazy bedhead permission to steal your favourite lunch spot, but he doesn't seem inclined to do otherwise.





	beneath the tree with fallen leaves

**Author's Note:**

> had to get this plot bunny out of my head sobs i think it seemed a lot better in my mind... enjoy (:

“You’re in my spot.”

The stranger with the crazy bedhead looks up from where he’s sitting, eyes widened and mouth agape. You think you’ve seen him around school a few times before; it’s pretty hard to miss someone with such wild hair. More importantly, you’re not so sure what he’s so shocked about, seeing as this place under the huge tree in your school’s backyard has been your go-to lunch spot for the past three years in this school. It was your favourite – a little out of the way from the main building, but that meant that it was pretty isolated, and that’s what you liked. Peace and quiet.

“You’re in my spot,” you repeat, louder this time and slightly annoyed at his lack of response.

“O-oh,” he simply responds, seeming to slowly snap out of his daze. When he finally does, a sly grin stretches his lips as he flops onto his back, arms and legs spread to occupy as much space as possible.

“I don’t see your name written here, though?”

His reply makes your blood boil. A typical childish response from a typical childish man. You couldn’t find it in you to retort, though. It’s been a tiring day and you just wanted to reward yourself with some good lunch before having to slave away for the next half of the school day. Figuring it’d be okay as long as he didn’t talk to you and vice versa, you made your way round to the other side of the tree and made yourself comfortable, pulling out your bento and digging in.

 

You groan when you see the guy at your favourite spot the next day, not even bothering to hide your displeasure towards him. He looks very amused at your reaction, and lets out a chuckle. “Great to see you too,” he smirks.

Not bothering to respond, you trudge over to the other side of the tree again and you’re about to sit down when his voice cuts in.

“Why don’t you join me over on this side? The view is better here.”

 _I know_ , you want to say – you’ve been coming here every day without fail for three years and you didn’t need some _spot-stealer_ to tell you that.

“No thanks.”

“Aw, come on. If you don’t join me over here I’m gonna come over to you,” he says, and you can hear some shuffling going on at his side as he moved to get up.

“Fine, _fine_ ,” you give in. If you were going to have to sit with him, you’d rather do that while facing the wide expanse of the school field and endless sky, not the dreadful-looking annex building that blocked off any possible view.

You got up and moved over to his side, seating yourself with a good distance between the two of you. You made sure that the look of disdain was still clearly etched on your face, so that he would finally take the hint and hopefully this would be the last time you’d ever have to see him.

“You come here often?” he asks, breaking the brewing tension.

“Every day,” you respond, not looking up from your meal.

He hums thoughtfully at your response, leaning back against the tree and closing his eyes. You frown at him making himself _too_ comfortable.

“So when are you going to stop coming?” you ask, though you wanted it to sound more like a not-so-subtle hint than a curious question.

He opens his eyes a little, blocking out the sun’s glare with one hand. “You don’t want me to be here?”

“I thought I made it pretty obvious.”

A brief moment of silence is exchanged between the both of you as he stares at you utterly dumbfounded before he breaks out into an obnoxious, loud laughter that makes you want to smack him across the face and tell him to shut the hell up.

“What’s so funny?” you frown, growing more irritated by the second.

The boy takes a while to recover from his intense bout of laughter, wiping away some tears for good measure. He waves a hand dismissively, still chuckling to himself a bit. “It’s nothing. It’s just that you kinda remind me of someone I know.”

You raise a brow at that, still not really seeing the point but couldn’t be bothered to probe any further.

“I like you,” he says out of nowhere and you choke on the piece of meat that you had in your mouth. You take a while to recover, coughing and patting your chest like crazy while he just sits there with that stupid amused look on his face again and you really want to smack that face of his. You really do.

“What?” you choke out when you finally find your voice again.

“I like you,” he repeats as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I think I’m going to come here every day from now on. Sounds good?”

It sounded absolutely fucking dreadful, and you made sure to make him aware of your sentiments with the look on your face but he just smiles, either completely oblivious or simply not caring. You’re pretty sure it’s the latter.

 

True to his words, you see him every day for the next few weeks. It took him a while to get you to open up to him, but you eventually did start talking to him. Your responses to him mostly consisted of one word answers, though, but he took what he could get. To be honest, you were kind of amazed at his perseverance. You thought he would have stopped trying a long time ago but he never grew bored of pestering you till you answered him. That’s what made him genuine, you thought, which is why you didn’t mind opening up to him after some time. He didn’t seem like someone who had any ill-intent.

On the other hand, he had no qualms sharing every single detail of his life with you. You learnt that he was on the volleyball team, the same year as you, all the names of his team members and a lot of random facts that you honestly didn’t ask for but he deemed necessary to inform you of. He seemed especially fond of this guy called Kenma, whom you found out was the friend he was referring to previously. You kind of envied him, being surrounded by so many people who loved him and being able to have so many friends that he was so fond of. But you couldn’t help but notice the twinge of sadness whenever he talked about them, and you couldn’t bring yourself to ask him about it. 

Despite knowing so many things about him, though, he refused to tell you his name. You found it pretty weird at first, knowing all these things about him but not even knowing something as basic as his name. 

“It keeps the mystery between us,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows at you and you felt so disgusted at that point in time that you felt physically unable to ask any further.

It’s not like you really cared, anyway. 

“How about you? Who do you usually hang with at school?” 

You flinch at his question, the topic being pretty touchy for you. You thought it was pretty obvious, what with you hanging out here by yourself every day. 

“I don’t.” 

“Oh?” he sounds surprised, and you know he’s truly, genuinely surprised, and he’s not trying to mock you by pretending to be oblivious to what you thought was clear as day. “Why not?” 

You bite your lip, debating whether or not to tell him about it. You could just ignore him like you usually do, and choose not to disclose anything. How would he even react if he knew? Would he just shun you like everyone else, and leave you to be by yourself again? Deep down, you knew he’d never do something like that. But the thought of losing his company sent a sharp pang to your heart and you’d rather play it safe. 

He remains quiet, even though he usually would have taken your lack of response quite badly and started poking you till you gave him an answer he was satisfied with. He probably knew that this was a sore subject for you. 

Or perhaps he was starting to realise it. 

Realise that maybe you were pretty weird, and you had no friends for that exact reason, and maybe he should start staying away from you too. 

“I gotta go,” you mumble, packing your stuff hurriedly and running back to the main building.

  

The next few days felt weird, breaking the daily ritual you had going on for the entirety of your school life here. You knew it was pretty childish to avoid him – in fact, it was counterproductive to your reason for not being honest with him. What was the point of keeping all these secrets from him, if you were going to lose his company either way? But you just couldn’t find the strength to face him again. You didn’t want to see the look of disgust on his face when he finds out the truth – you were pretty used to being looked down on, but the last person you ever wanted to see that look on was him. You grab your head in frustration, the dilemma tearing you up from the inside. 

You rest your head on your table, letting the whispers from your classmates go in to one ear, and out the other. You’ve been having lunch in your classroom the past few days and at first you felt pretty out of place, and you could practically feel your classmates’ stares piercing your back and their not-so-discrete gossip about you made you feel like giving up and just going back to the comfort of your hideout, to the comfort of _him_. But it’s been three days and you’re still going strong. 

“Did you hear? I heard he passed away last night,” a titbit of gossip catches your attention, and you keep your head on the table while tuning in to their conversation. 

“Pretty sad, huh? Heard the volleyball team hasn’t been taking this very well.” 

The last part sends fear coursing through your blood, and you feel like a puzzle has just connected in your mind, one that you didn’t even know was there but as you went through everything in your head, it all started to click and you were trembling. _No_. This couldn’t be real. 

“Who is he?” you’re up on your feet in seconds, grabbing your classmate by the shoulders, eyes frantic. 

“W-what?” she squeaks, fear evident in her eyes but you couldn’t care less. “L-let go of me you freak!”

“Who is he!” you demanded, grip tightening.

“Kuroo Tetsurou! Geez! Everybody in school knows he has been in a coma for the past month,” she yells back, prying your hands off of her. “Don’t touch me, I’ll get cursed.” 

“Show me a picture,” you frown, and she stares at you as if you’ve grown two heads. 

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” 

“Just do it!” you nearly scream, growing impatient. You were chanting a mantra in your head at this point in time, praying that it wasn’t true, don’t let your suspicions come true. 

“Here,” your classmate shoves her phone in your face, and it takes a while for your eyes to adjust to the picture on her screen but when you’ve processed everything, your face pales and you feel your knees grow weak. The same crazy bedhead and cat-like features were the first thing you noticed, and a chill ran down your spine as the boy in the picture grinned that sly grin of his, the one that you’ve been seeing countless of times in person for the past month.   

“What, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she snickers. “But you’re probably used to that, aren’t you? Anyway, get away from me. I don’t want to start seeing ghosts like you, too.” 

You’re bolting out the door before hearing what she had to say. Your legs moved as if detached from your body, and the only thing on your mind was to get there as soon as possible, get to _him_ as soon as possible. Once you reached the annex building, the tree was within your sight and you heave a sigh of relief when you see a silhouette under it. You pick up your speed, his back view becoming clearer to you as your approached him.

“Kuroo!” you yell, getting his attention.

He turns at the sound of your voice, and there’s a look of disbelief and surprise on his face. You stop in front of him, resting your hands on your knees as you try to catch your breath. Now that you’ve reached him, you don’t even know what to say. Where do you even start? How were you even supposed to- 

“So you found out, huh?” 

You look up at him, and he’s smiling down at you but there’s no hint of happiness behind his expression at all. It stabs right through your heart, twisting and twisting and it feels like you might cry out from the pain, but all you could muster at that moment was to throw yourself at him, arms wrapping around his torso as you muffled your sobs against his chest. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” your voice cracks, and you feel his arms slowly wrap around you as well, hand coming up to stroke your head soothingly. “You knew too, didn’t you? That I could see ghosts.” 

Now his shocked expression the first time you met, the reason why he didn’t want to tell you his name, the look of longing he had whenever he talked about himself – it all made sense, and you felt like a complete _idiot_ for not figuring out earlier. 

Kuroo rests his chin on your head, moving his hand down to rub soothing circles on your back. “Well, it didn’t really matter to me, honestly, but it seemed to affect you a lot and I just wanted to talk to you about it but I guess that backfired, huh?” 

You stay like that for a while, just taking in his scent and the feeling of his arms around you. His body is void of warmth, and it pains you just to think about it but right now, you just want to savour the moment. 

“Don’t go,” you sob, tightening your hold on him. You’ve had the ability to see ghosts since you were young, and you knew that once a person passed away, their soul had less than a day to linger on Earth. 

Kuroo doesn’t reply. Instead, he moves to sit down, pulling you down with him with his back against the tree. Your arms are still around him and his around you, with you settled on his lap as he presses kisses to your forehead. You both know that he has to go. 

“I’ll always be here for you, you know that right?” he finally says, hands gently cradling your face to get you to look at him. His thumbs swipe over your tears, despite them flowing like a never-ending river. You want to shake your head – tell him it’s _different_ , it won’t be the same if he’s not actually there, but you see the tears welling up in his eyes too, and you know he’s in an even worse state than you are, having to leave his family, friends, his entire _life_. 

You reach a hand up to him, your thumbs brushing the skin under his eye, fingers caressing his cheeks. He lets out a stuttering breath, leaning into your touch, eyelids fluttering shut. He remains still, relishing this moment as your thumb moves down his cheek, over his lips. You lean forward till your foreheads touch, and your heart is pounding rapidly against your chest at the proximity. 

“Can I kiss you?” 

His eyes peek open at that, and you barely have time to react before his lips seal over yours. You close your eyes, and you’re a god damn mess – tears are flowing down your cheeks, and you can’t stop sobbing but Kuroo doesn’t stop, his lips moving against yours in a deeply, passionately, and you feel like the world could end at that moment and you wouldn’t even care.

When you part, you see that Kuroo was already starting to fade. 

“Thank you,” you whisper against his lips. 

He chuckles, pulling you into his chest once more. “Silly. I should be thanking you.” 

And you’re not sure how long you stayed there in his arms, or when you fell asleep, but when you woke up the sun had long set and you were the only one under the tree again.

  

It takes a long time for you to adjust back, even though that month in your life felt like a strange dream. If anything, life now was “normal” for you – sitting alone under that tree for lunch, schoolmates shunning you since apparently the ability to see ghosts could be passed on to someone like a disease. 

It’s about two months since the incident when you see someone at your lunch spot again, and this time, you’re less quick to drive them away. The first thing that struck you was the weird hair that reminded you of a pudding – chin-length blonde hair with black roots well-grown out. The boy looks at you as you approach the tree, and his cat-like features reminds you so much of Kuroo that you feel your heart skip a beat. 

“Are you [Y/N]?” 

You nod hesitantly. You’re pretty sure you’ve never met this boy in your entire life. 

“I’m Kenma.” 

You raise your brows at the familiar name, and the words come out of your mouth before you can stop yourself: “Kuroo’s friend!”   

Kenma looks surprised at first, but it’s quickly replaced with a small smile. “This is gonna sound strange but I see him in my dreams sometimes – he talks about you a lot.”

You perk up at that, eyes brightening as you move to sit next to him. You’ve never heard of communicating with ghosts through dreams, much less with Kuroo. “Yeah? Is he doing well?” 

You spend the next few hours talking to Kenma about Kuroo, learning everything about him since he was a kid. You don’t even pay mind to the fact that the school bell had rung multiple times, and classes were over for that day a long time ago. 

And as you sat beneath the tree, you felt oddly at peace.


End file.
